


Go Home

by Alania



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Don't Read This, I'm warning you, It's pure pain, TW: Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 15:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6664321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alania/pseuds/Alania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han Solo's death marks the end of an era and Chewbacca's not comfortable facing a new age without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Home

The Millennium Falcon was Han Solo. It didn’t matter how many hands it had passed through, or the fact that the man was dead. This ship, and everything on it, was his. Chewbacca included, the Wookie told himself, as he wandered through the cramped passageways. Rey and R2 remained safe with Luke, and he’d taken the Falcon and left them there to start whatever road the Jedi were meant to travel on.

He’d walked that path once, for a little while. Side by side with the Jedi, fighting a war that threatened to destroy his planet. He remembered the fighting. And he remembered losing.

He remembered losing a lot, actually.

The first time he’d met Han, the man was a boy, and the boy was well on his way to becoming a criminal. Chewie had nothing - not even his brother, or his family, to protect anymore. Yoda was gone, presumably forever, and the era of the Jedi was extinct. Now there was just this boy, whose penchant for trouble left him barely breathing at almost every turn.

And Chewie knew, even if he wasn’t saving the world by doing it, that he was destined to protect the boy.

When the boy grew into a man, that destiny turned tougher with each passing crime. Han wanted nothing more than to use what he considered his _great talent for coercion_ in ways that often led to the two of them being imprisoned, tortured, shot at, hunted, or worse. Chewbacca had never - not once - committed a crime before he met Han. And when he thought about it, he didn’t think he actually remembered doing so after, either.

It was always Han coming up with the hair-brained schemes. Always Han pissing off the crime lords. Always Han, shooting first. 

But crime by association was still a crime, in the eyes of all the different laws that had come and gone in the span of Chewie’s long life. So he didn’t mind being classified as a criminal, if it meant he’d kept Han alive for as long as he had.

It was a miracle the man had grown up long enough to have his own family. A miracle that he’d lived long enough to see his son as an adult. A tragedy that the only time he’d seen that, was the day he’d died.

But the real tragedy was that Chewbacca was only one Wookie, and he’d had to choose, long ago.

He saw the signs before either of Ben’s parents could, but he wasn’t Ben’s father. He could do nothing but give the boy a hand to hold, a supportive hug, a listening ear. He couldn’t fix the problems that were creeping in when Leia left him with strangers, and Han flew away from his responsibilities. 

Chewie had already chosen his path - he followed Han to the ends of the galaxy, even when he knew, deep down, that Han should have been home more often than not with his son.

And each time they returned, and he saw how far the darkness had crept into young Ben’s eyes, Chewie knew they were going to lose him. Nothing Ben had done ever came as a surprise - until the last day he’d seen him.

The day he’d taken Han away from them all, and left Chewie with no path to follow again.

He saw the boy between his crosshairs, but death would have been too merciful for Kylo Ren. And in truth, Chewie felt the weight of his own choices bear down on them all - for how could he have promised to protect Han, if he’d let that boy turn into the monster who’d eventually kill him? Why did he just stand there, and watch as two people abandoned a withering seed, and let it rot?

No, he knew this was his fault, too.

His shot moved, hitting the boy wide, and leaving him with a permanent mark.

The void of hyperspace felt like a transition, and Chewie made a decision as he watched the bright blue flashes zip across the Falcon. He was tired. Every mistake he’d made weighed down on him, and he was so very tired.

When the Falcon broke out of hyperspace, he found himself in a veritable mine field of broken technology. There were scraps of Starkiller everywhere, floating debris that had yet to be pulled into the heated sun core. He turned the Falcon on autopilot, and tapped out a very short, very personal message.

It was broadcast on a public channel. He heard the click the moment the First Order - not so far from the wreckage itself, still trying to protect any last secrets - picked it up.

And it was addressed to Kylo Ren.

Chewie rose his arms up behind his head, pressed back on Han’s pilot chair, and growled out a soft, familiar little lullaby. He remembered singing it to his brother, on the day of his wedding. He remembered humming it as he held the other Wookie, dying in his arms.

He remembered lulling a little boy back to sleep with it, after waking from a terrifying nightmare.

His voice trembled as he hummed it, and flew the Falcon directly into the sun, to reunite it with the only man who deserved it.

Because Han Solo was the Millenium Falcon. Chewie knew it was about time to end this long, broken path of his, and fly it home.

\---

**Interstellar Transmission:** Code 562, Security: Public  
 **Recipient:** Commander Kylo Ren of the First Order

**Message:**  
Go home.

**Author's Note:**

> Someone asked me to write something painful.
> 
> This is about as bad as it gets.


End file.
